Tesco results are strong, helped by drive to boost F&F clothing sales

Supermarkets giant Tesco reported its half-year results on Thursday and said its clothing operations saw a strong sales rise.

Overall for the company, group sales increased by 5.1% to £33 billion and adjusted operation profit was up 1.5% at £1.674 billion.

While the bulk of its operations are about food retail in stores, CEO Ken Murphy said “our online business is going from strength-to-strength, enhanced by the recent launch of F&F [clothing] online and continued growth in Whoosh, our rapid delivery service”.

F&F has been receiving heavy support via a TV ad campaign in recent months with the humorous campaign encouraging customers to “style it out” in the most embarrassing situations. And the campaign is clearly having an impact.

Going into more detail, clothing saw strong like-for-like sales growth of 7.8%, “as customers responded well” to the SS25 ranges, “particularly in womenswear and childrenswear, with volumes also supported by good weather”. 

The recent launch of F&F online has allowed more of its customers to access a much wider range of clothing and complements its broader Tesco Marketplace proposition that now includes over 600,000 products.

That said, home like-for-like sales declined by 2.1%, but excluding a one-off impact, home like-for-like sales grew by 3.1% with the F&F home lifestyle range continuing to perform strongly post-launch in the second half of last year.

In Ireland non-food like-for-like sales declined by 1.8%, but excluding toys, non-food sales grew by 2% supported by volume growth in clothing. 

However in Europe, non-food like-for-like sales were down 0.8%, impacted by subdued consumer confidence and poor weather, with volumes lower across both home and clothing.